AnimationSutra AnimationSutra
Home Tuition

Loading

Frozen 2 Just Became Disney Animations Biggest Sequel Ever Box Office


WALT DISNEY With a Thanksgiving Day gross of $14.718 million, Frozen II has passed Tangleds $200 million domestic total and should pass $600 million worldwide today.

frozen-2

November 30th, 2019


Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, and Jonathan Groff in Walt Disney's 'Frozen II'

Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, and Jonathan Groff in Walt Disney's 'Frozen II'


Frozen II continued to set fire to the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, in a good way, with a scorching $14.718 million (-39% from Wednesday) on Thursday. That’s just below the $14.95 million gross of Hunger Games: Catching Fire (sans inflation and without 3-D) on Thanksgiving day of 2013, just missing a new record for the holiday. Ironically, Catching Fire’s primary competition on its second weekend was the wide release debut of Frozen, which earned $67 million over the Fri-Sun portion of its $93 million Wed-Sun debut. That’s still the biggest opening for a Thanksgiving release. And now, barring a (severely unlikely) downtown over the weekend, Frozen II will easily surpass Catching Fire’s $73 million Fri-Sun/$109 million Wed-Sun second-weekend gross to snag the biggest Thanksgiving weekend ever, opening or otherwise.

The Anna/Elsa sequel has now earned $202 million in its first week in theaters. Presuming it maintained that 36.3/63.7 domestic/overseas split from Sunday (after it opened with $130 million domestic and $228 million overseas), it should have around $556 million worldwide as it cruises past $600 million sometime today. So, yeah, for what it’s worth, it’s already Walt Disney Animation’s biggest-grossing theatrical sequel, ahead of Ralph Breaks the Internet ($529 million in 2018) and, uh, The Jungle Book 2 ($186 million in 2003), Peter Pan 2: Return to Neverland ($115 million in 2002), Fantasia 2000 ($90 million in 2000/2001) and Rescuers Down Under ($27 million). Unlike Pixar, Illumination or DreamWorks, Walt Disney Animation almost never makes theatrical sequels to their theatrical toons.

They have, starting with The Return of Jafar in 1994, made plenty of direct-to-VHS or direct-to-DVD sequels to their animated theatricals. Both Jungle Book 2 and Return to Neverland originally began life as direct-to-DVD titles. For that matter, so too did, once upon a time, Pixar’s Toy Story 2 which was initially a home video release before they overhauled the film and made something worthy of wide theatrical release. You could say that decision was a game changer but, let’s be honest, it’s not like DreamWorks wasn’t going to make Shrek 2 after Shrek earned $484 million in the summer of 2001. Frozen II is a very rare thing by virtue of its existence, which only made it more unique within the marketplace.

Since Frozen was not created as a franchise-starter, it has an advantage over many of the disappointing sequels we’ve seen of late. It only exists because of consumer demand, not because the studio wants to milk a once-successful IP or because certain filmmakers want to roll the dice again with their favorite franchise. The core appeal of Frozen was the character chemistry of Kristen Bell’s Anna and Idina Menzel’s Elsa, and the buzzy songs, so the film merely had to deliver that to please the fans and the crowds. While I may take issues with the story and the plot (and that the songs are generic and narratively redundant), the sequel works on a character-driven/emotional level, which is arguably more important if you have to triage.

So, yes, breakout sequel or no, Walt Disney’s Frozen II is absolutely pulling a Phantom Menace, where it makes up for a merely “very good” opening weekend by just dominating its second, holiday-infused second frame. It may have opened below, even with inflation and 3-D bumps, the Twilight sequels, but it’ll have out-grossed every Twilight sequel ($281 million-$300 million) by Sunday night. And it probably sold fewer tickets on opening weekend than the penultimate Hunger Games ($122 million in 2014) and the penultimate Harry Potter flick ($125 million in 2010), but it’ll pass the respective total grosses of the last two Hunger Games movies ($337 million and $282 million) and every Harry Potter but the last one ($381 million in 2011) by Sunday or Monday.



Relates News

Here is the First look of Trolls World Tour

DreamWorks Animation Reveals First look Pics of Trolls World Tour

Read more


VFX breakdown reveals how the car chase crafted by the black panther

vfx breakdown reveals how the cars chase after was made by the black panther

Read more


JOB SEARCH